View Single Post
Old 04-25-21 | 01:08 PM
  #1  
bluehills3149's Avatar
bluehills3149
Full Member
10 Anniversary
 
Joined: Jun 2014
Posts: 457
Likes: 90
From: Melbourne, Australia

Bikes: depends what week it is..

Brake calipers for Sensah shifters

I got some Sensah 9spd shifters (about $50 delivered) to convert a Centurion Ironman from the original 6spd Shimano 105 to 2x9spd. The shifting works great using the original derailleurs although note I also replaced wheels, chain, cassette (12-28) and front chainring from 42 to 39 teeth.
But the braking is woeful. The front caliper is a newer dual-pivot shimano but the rear is the old 105 single pivot. The front brake is kinda OK but you need a fair amount of hand pressure but the rear is terrible no matter how hard you pull the levers.
Unfortunately there is scant info about these levers online regarding how to install or what derailleurs and/or brake calipers they are compatible with ( the rear derailleurs are compatible with old Shimano 6-10 speed and not the 11spd or Tiagra 4700 series).

Shimano changed the cable pull on their brakes when they went to the 5800/6800/9000 series and called it SLR-EV and it uses a variable pull ratio and the measured pivot point is about 36mm in radius. The old brake standard is confusing called "new Super SLR" and was used on the older brake levers (and is still used today on Sora and Tiagra).
More info about brake pull is here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mechanics/1041221-definitive-but-wildly-inaccurate-guide-brake-cable-pull-ratios.html

The question is what are the Sensahs? Some ads imply they are Sora/Tiagra compatible but I measured the radius pivot point and it's about 35mm (but not variable like Shimano) which implies kinda SLR-EV compatible. The old Shimano levers (and Sora) are about 18-20mm so these are definitely different and the terrible performance backs this up.




bluehills3149 is offline  
Reply